With the death in April 1983 of "Abuela Rosa" (Grandmother Rose, the last of the Yaganas, once an important ethnic group in Southern Chile), a "vision of the world" as seen through an indigenous American culture was extinguished.  It was another of the many such cultures which have disappeared since the European conquest and colonization of this continent started nearly five centuries ago.

Expert studies reveal that more than five hundred languages or dialects still survive in Latin America.  They are grouped in twenty main families, established on the basis of different criteria-genetic-structural relations, grammatical-lexical kinships, or simple geographical groupings.  The diversity and dissimilarity of these languages add to the mystery surrounding their origins.  Indeed, explanations of the origin or cultural roots of the Amerindian people are still in the realm of hypothesis.  Are they autogenous, or are they of Asiatic, Oceanic, African or runic origin?  Or does their origin lie in a mixture of all these possibilities?  At all events, serious investigations have revealed noteworthy analogies with such faraway languages as Finnish, Basque, Turko-Caucasian or SinoTibetan.

A feature of these languages is the absence of unity within "families".  Thus Quechua, which was the language of the most highly developed empire at the time of the arrival of the Spaniards, that of the Incas, contains a rather wide diversity of dialects.  In this regard, a very typical case is that of the Maya group, within which twenty-eight dissimilar dialectic forms exist today.

The difference between Quichè (the language of the- Popol Vuh) and another important dialect, Cakchiquel, for example, is as great as that between French and Russian, both of which are members of the Indo-European linguistic family.

In order to appreciate the substantial difference between the native languages of America and those of the so-called "Western" world, certain basic characteristics of the former must be pointed out.  It is essential to make the distinction because it was the "Western" languages which entered into contact with the Amerindian languages, a contact marked by a conflict of cultures and a relationship of domination.  In this connexion, the French specialist in Amerindian languages Bernard Pottier draws attention to "the existence of categories of thought manifested by grammatical modes to which we are not accustomed".  This is an initial difference related to "the Vision of the World", that is to say "the connexions between kinds of experience lived and linguistic taxonomies".

Secondly, it is necessary to emphasize the essentially oral character of the Amerindian languages which have no alphabet.  I say "essentially", because at least two of them-Maya and Nahuatl-had a method of transmission.  This was based on a system of grooves and ideograms engraved on stone, wood, plaster, on jade or drawn in the codices manufactured from the bark of the ainate.  But writing did not exclude oral tradition since writing was exclusive to the priestly class in particular, as well as to an 61ite of nobles and rulers.

Of all these languages, the one which is most widely used today is Quechua, which is spoken by approximately 12,000,000 people (in Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Northern Argentina  Southern Colombia).  Next comes Guarani, spoken by 3,000,000 people (in Paraguay, several parts of Argentina and pockets in Brazil and Bolivia).  About a million speak Maya (in Guatemala, Southern Mexico, Belize, a part of Honduras); Aymara (in Bolivia, Northern Chile and Southern Peru); Nahuatl (in Mexico and El Salvador).  The present standing of these languages corresponds to the characteristics of a general language or a lingua franca which they possessed before the conquest and during the colonial period, i.e. vehicular languages in extensive areas of the continent.

This leads us to an examination of the consequences of the various contact situations which arose as a result of the European presence on the American continent.  This presence interrupted a process of civilization by bringing two different systems of values into confrontation.  It was a dramatic confrontation which, because of the technical superiority of the European, involved the imposition of the "Western" Christian model to the detriment of Amerindian cultural values and, at the same time, of the language of the conquistador.  The conflict opposing two concepts of civilization was fundamentally an ideological confrontation.  Specifically, it derived from the need to impose "an unquestionable truth"the existence of one true god, that of the conquerors, and consequently the indispensable "destruction of idolatry", the death of the "false divinities" adored by the "infidels".  This was the main pretext for the entire process of cultural substitution and economic exploitation of the colony.

Language naturally played an essential role in this confrontation, since it was the material in which the ideological content of the conditioning process was moulded.  It was also the material in which resistance to that process was fashioned.

To the conquering language of Castile, whose imposition on the Iberian peninsula was completed in the very year in which America was discovered, was assigned the task of conditioning.  Initially, it was the medium of evangelization, but it withdrew from this role when the superior efficacy of the vehicular Amerindian languages for teaching the "true faith" was realized.  This victory of the judgment of the "theologians" over that of the "politicians" took place during the 16th century with the solid support of the Jesuits.  This meant that the natives were conditioned in their own language but also that the colonial process strengthened the status of some languages, such as Guarani, which was standardized in the Missions, or developed the spread of others, like Quechua, whose use was greatly extended after the Conquest.

The most remarkable experiment affecting a native language was that performed by the Jesuits in the Guarani Reductions during a century and a half.  This experiment consisted in using only Guarani for the production of Christian religious literature.  This certainly helped to strengthen the position of the indigenous language (which, thanks to a process of generalized racial integration, was already well established in the Province of Paraguay), but at the same time it drained Guarani of its own values which were essentially of a mystical-religious character.

Not a single example of this oral literature had been transcribed up to the first decade of this century, which proves that the "colonial process" continued after independence (1811).  And this marginalization is even more serious since the exuberant speech of the Guaranis was the principal expression of their culture.

However, Guarani has survived in resemanticized, diglottic form until today as the generally spoken language of a national community, Paraguay.  This is a unique case in America. 95 per cent of the population speak it, 45 per cent of the population are bilingual, 50 per cent are monolingual in Guarani and 5 per cent are monolingual in Spanish.  Its use is not restricted to the regions of the interior.  It has also invaded the cities.  Nor is its use confined to certain classes of society, as happens with the native languages in other countries of the continent.  But notwithstanding its general use, Guarani is only a "national" language-together with Spanish-as declared in Article 5 of the Constitution which, in the next line, consecrates Spanish as the "official" language.

Literacy programmes are not conducted in Guarani and it is not used as a medium of artistic expression.  Thus the Paraguayan writer has accepted his condition of being a colonized writer since, despite the fact of knowing the native language, he does not write in it.  The impulses of the popular will operate in Guarani, but social and cultural advancement are achieved through Spanish.  These are signs which show that Guarani is the language of a dominated, albeit a majority group.

But what is happening to the other great indigenous language, Quechua, which is the most widely spoken on the continent?  To compare it with the situation described above, that is to say in the context of a State, let us take the case of Peru.  In May 1975, Quechua was declared by law to be an official language of that country on an equal footing with Spanish.  The purpose of this was to strengthen the position of Quechua in the national community and to combat the social inferiority attached to the indigenous language and its speakers.  At the present time, the linguistic position in Peru is as follows.  Between six and eight million out of a total population of 16 million are bilingual in varying degrees, and about 1,600,000 are monolingual in Quechua.  That is to say that approximately 50 per cent of the population are in a linguistic situation similar to that found in Paraguay.  With one difference however-this half of the population is linguistically isolated from the other half, doubtless through lack of communication, but also because those who speak Quechua are looked down upon.

The situation of Nahuatl, the other language which enjoyed great prestige and was widely used in pre-Columbian times, is even worse.  Successive censuses reveal a progressive decline in the number of speakers, again largely because of the social opprobrium of which the language is victim.  This is despite the admirable declarations of principle enshrined in "indigenista" policies which, judging by the results, are ineffectual and incoherent.

There exists another approach through which Amerindian cultures, or the encouragement of the languages, is extended or projected within the hybrid societies of America, and here I am speaking primarily of cultural hybridity. This is the approach which evokes or proposes an image of the Indian and of the components of his world.  The first projection, called indianismo, is that portrayed in nineteenth-century Latin American romanticism.  Alienated, stereotyped, idealized, it is nothing else than the image borrowed from the clich6 of the "noble savage" which was a fashionable invention of European literature.

Towards the beginning of the present century, an entire change of focus took place, and the Indian portrayed in the pages of the indigenista novel symbolizes a denunciation of, and violent protest against, the exploitation of which he himself is a victim in Latin American society.  This vision is compassionate, indignant and committed but it is outside the cultures it seeks to defend.  Thus the indigenistas fall into an unconscious contradiction when they propose the integration of the Indian on terms of equality into national or "white" society.  In doing so, they overlook cultural specificities, which involves an obvious risk of contributing to a loss of identity.

Towards the 1940s, the nature of writing underwent a change and the Latin American writer lost his complex of writing in an "imposed language" . Overcoming the old tyranny of "correct" Spanish, he adopted a language in which local, everyday elements enriched the linguistic systemCastilian Spanish-in which he expressed himself.  Much of this renewal is due to the fact that a number of writers assumed the profound values of indigenous cultures.  True, they write in Spanish but knowing, as most of them do, the autochthonous languages on which in all cases these cultures are based, they employ resources and techniques borrowed from them which end by changing or giving a profoundly different colouring to what in literary terms remains the predominant idiom.